Road rages: Father of 2 killed when hit by car speeding down curvy Cordova road

Walnut Bend has a reputation as a dangerous road. A fatal accident on May 27 happened beyond the curve at the right edge of the photo.

Samer Sakaan

When Stacie Hillard got a call saying that her best friend had been in an accident, she immediately thought of his motorcycle.

It was William Marshall's 11-year-old son on the phone.

"Tell me where you are," she said to the boy.

"We're at home."

She was confused. "At home?"

Then a stranger took the phone from the boy.

"He told me to get to the house right away, that it was really bad," Hillard said.

Marshall had been checking his mail about 11:30 a.m. on May 27 when he was run over by a car in his driveway.

Police said Samer Sakaan, 18, was driving at an "excessive speed" down Walnut Bend Road, trying to pass another car on the curvy, two-lane street when he clipped the front end of the other car with the back end of his own. He lost control of his vehicle and hit Marshall.

Sakaan performed poorly on field sobriety tests at the scene, and told police that he had been at Senses Nightclub in Memphis until 5 a.m. He denied being drunk or having smoked marijuana, but police said in a report that he smelled of weed and looked impaired.

On Tuesday Sakaan appeared before a judge to plead not guilty to charges including vehicular homicide, driving under the influence, reckless driving and public intoxication.

"This is hard on Sakaan and his family, but I think they're very aware that it can't even compare to what the victim's family is going through," said Sakaan's attorney, Claiborne Ferguson. "Obviously their sympathies and prayers are with the children that are now without a father."

Marshall was 36, the father of boys who are 7 and 11, whose mother has an aggressive form of cancer. The children were in the house, a few dozen yards from their father when he was hit, but police did what they could to keep them from the accident scene, Hillard said.

She picked up Marshall's children from their home and took them to the hospital, where their mother was waiting. At 1:35 that afternoon, doctors told Hillard that Marshall was dead.

"They told me not to see him, but I did. I held his face in my hands and kissed his cheek. Then all I could think was, how am I going to tell the boys?"

Friends of Marshall said that he was an excellent father and friend.

"He would literally give you the shirt off his back. He was a big guy, so it wouldn't fit most of us, but he'd give it to you anyway," said Marshall's friend, Brian Sanders.

Marshall was the president of the Dirty South Rydaz Motorcycle Club, and Sanders is hoping the motorcycle community will turn out for a fundraiser for Marshall's sons Saturday at Celtic Crossing on South Cooper in Midtown. They will ask for $10 at the door, starting at 5 p.m. and the proceeds will go to a trust for the boys at Regions Bank.

The bikers will meet at 4:30 p.m. at the corner of Pauline and Union Avenue to ride to the pub together in tribute to their friend.

Marshall, a self-employed heating and air-conditioning specialist, moved into the house where he died just three months ago. He told friends that he wanted a bigger house and yard for his kids.

With only two lanes separated by a double yellow line, the road has a reputation among the neighbors for dangerous accidents.

"If you drive fast on that street and it's a little bit wet, the next thing you know you're going to be in somebody's yard or mailbox," said Chip Newman, who lives a few doors away from Marshall.

"I've had four wrecks in my yard."

Newman said that a neighbor whose house sits along one of Walnut Bend's many blind curves, has had nearly 30 cars careen onto his front lawn.

Sakaan is scheduled to return to court on June 27. He is free on $30,000 bond after spending part of the weekend at Shelby County Jail.

"William would get upset that he could never have enough time with his boys," Sanders said.

"We would explain to him that (their mother) is trying to spend as much time with them as she can because she thinks she might not be here much longer. The crazy thing about it is that he's the one that didn't have enough time."